My First Mountain Bike Race
Yes, after years of mountain bike riding, I entered my first race. I had no aspirations of winning, or even placing, my goal was to actually finish.
The Sea Otter Classic is an annual bicycle festival held over 4 days at Laguna Seca and surrounding land. I entered the beginner's mountain bike cross country race - just over 19 miles, right around 3000' of climbing, and given the Sea Otter's popularity, lots of people.
They group folks by gender and age - I was in the male 40-44 class - there were 87 of us in that class alone. In the photo below you can see the mass of people in front of our group (see the guy holding the 40-44 sign - that was our group) as the younger folks get to go first.
Behind us on the grid were the older folks groups and the female groups (who do a different, shorter course).
Groups set off at either 5 or 10 minute intervals, and you have a chip transponder type thing attached to your ankle that registers your time as you cross the line.
When our group's time arrived, we all set off and I deliberately set off slow and dropped to the back of our group as I didn't want to get over excited and peak too early. We started on the track between turns 4 and 5 and headed the wrong way, so did turns 4, 3, 2, 1 then down the start finish straight the wrong way, around 11, up through 10 to 9 where we turned off the track and headed out on to the trails.
I'd ridden the trails before so knew what was coming, but even so, riding in the proximity of so many people, all trying to go fast was intimidating. I was trying to pace myself, but soon realized I was getting caught up in the speed of it all and was pushing harder than I had planned.
I was being overtaken by faster folks and I was overtaking slower folks the whole ride long - I found that I was probably above average going up hill and definitely one of the slower folks going downhill (even if I did hit nearly 40mph at one stage!).
As the race wore on, I got better about pacing myself, though I think I did overdo it early on and I was hurting towards the end.
In the end, the official timing had me coming 64th out of 87 in my group and completing the course in 2 hours 10 minutes and 31 seconds - which exceeded my goals, so I was happy.
I was also coated in dust and grime (so many riders all around all the time kicked up the dust something chronic) and thoroughly worn out.
I (of course, I'm a geek) wore my GPS - I started it 30 seconds before the start so that I wouldn't forget to start it when the flag dropped, so the trace is around 30 seconds longer than the official time - trace is here.
I had one small burton in a very sandy downhill (where I got passed by these two guys who flew past me in this deep sand at least twice as fast as I'd ever try it).
It was a very cool experience, but I'm not sure I'd do it again - I'm just not that competitive - of course, I reserve the right to change my mind next year!
The Sea Otter Classic is an annual bicycle festival held over 4 days at Laguna Seca and surrounding land. I entered the beginner's mountain bike cross country race - just over 19 miles, right around 3000' of climbing, and given the Sea Otter's popularity, lots of people.
They group folks by gender and age - I was in the male 40-44 class - there were 87 of us in that class alone. In the photo below you can see the mass of people in front of our group (see the guy holding the 40-44 sign - that was our group) as the younger folks get to go first.
Behind us on the grid were the older folks groups and the female groups (who do a different, shorter course).
Groups set off at either 5 or 10 minute intervals, and you have a chip transponder type thing attached to your ankle that registers your time as you cross the line.
When our group's time arrived, we all set off and I deliberately set off slow and dropped to the back of our group as I didn't want to get over excited and peak too early. We started on the track between turns 4 and 5 and headed the wrong way, so did turns 4, 3, 2, 1 then down the start finish straight the wrong way, around 11, up through 10 to 9 where we turned off the track and headed out on to the trails.
I'd ridden the trails before so knew what was coming, but even so, riding in the proximity of so many people, all trying to go fast was intimidating. I was trying to pace myself, but soon realized I was getting caught up in the speed of it all and was pushing harder than I had planned.
I was being overtaken by faster folks and I was overtaking slower folks the whole ride long - I found that I was probably above average going up hill and definitely one of the slower folks going downhill (even if I did hit nearly 40mph at one stage!).
As the race wore on, I got better about pacing myself, though I think I did overdo it early on and I was hurting towards the end.
In the end, the official timing had me coming 64th out of 87 in my group and completing the course in 2 hours 10 minutes and 31 seconds - which exceeded my goals, so I was happy.
I was also coated in dust and grime (so many riders all around all the time kicked up the dust something chronic) and thoroughly worn out.
I (of course, I'm a geek) wore my GPS - I started it 30 seconds before the start so that I wouldn't forget to start it when the flag dropped, so the trace is around 30 seconds longer than the official time - trace is here.
I had one small burton in a very sandy downhill (where I got passed by these two guys who flew past me in this deep sand at least twice as fast as I'd ever try it).
It was a very cool experience, but I'm not sure I'd do it again - I'm just not that competitive - of course, I reserve the right to change my mind next year!
posted by Tim H at 10:00 PM
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